Kai's first awareness was heat.
A warm weight pressed against his cheek, followed by the faint smell of pine. His fingers twitched against smooth wooden planks, not a bedsheet. Something was off, but the thought came slowly, like it was wading through thick syrup.
His eyes cracked open.
A wooden ceiling stared back at him. It wasn't the familiar plaster of his apartment—no cracks, no dust, no glow of the LED strip he left on overnight. This was warm, polished timber, with tiny grooves running across it in straight lines, too regular to be handmade.
Kai pushed himself upright. His limbs moved oddly, like someone else had assembled them and he was borrowing the instructions.
A soft chime sounded inside his skull.
[Welcome, Guide. Daily functions loaded.]
He froze.
That wasn't a hallucination. That was a system message. And not just any message. He knew that exact tone, the way the syllables clipped at the end. He'd heard it countless times while speed-running tutorial quests.
"No way," he whispered.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The mattress didn't sag. It had the fixed firmness of game props that were only meant to look functional. As he stood, a faint stiffness moved along his arms like data packets traveling down invisible wires.
The room was tiny and painfully familiar.
A desk with beginner manuals arranged in neat rows. A locked cabinet beside it—he didn't need to open it to know what was inside. And by the far wall, a small window overlooking—
He walked over and pushed it open.
Warm wind brushed against his face. Trees rustled. Farther off, he could hear gravel crunching under sandals, a child laughing, a wooden sign creaking on its hinge.
Alder Village.
The beginner zone of Arcana Beast Online.
Exactly as the game had portrayed it—except this wasn't a screen. This wasn't pixels or ambient audio loops. The air smelled like wet soil and fruit peels baking in sunlight. The wind carried heat. The sounds layered like real life, not a repeating sound set.
Kai pressed his palm to the windowsill, grounding himself. The wood pushed back with texture—fine grain, slight unevenness, warmth from the sun. Too real.
His heart thudded. He didn't remember logging into anything. He remembered leaving the convenience store near campus, stepping off the curb, headlights—then a sudden nothing.
The memory hit him with a cold jolt.
"Okay. Okay…" He dragged a hand down his face. "I died. Or something close enough."
He looked again at the village.
An old woman knelt by a basket of herbs, sorting them by color with choreographed calm. A pair of kids raced down the road, laughing as they chased a tiny furred creature with stubby wings. A traveling merchant arranged fruit on a stall, moving each piece in the exact pattern Kai remembered from the game.
Every NPC followed predictable patterns.
And he realized then, slowly and uncomfortably:
So did he.
He turned toward the locked cabinet. If he was the Guide NPC, the one assigned to give new players their first companions…
He knew the script. He'd run through it in speed-runs and joke accounts.
Welcome to Alder Village, young tamer. I'll help you choose your first Arcana Beast.
It was supposed to flow out of him smoothly.
He was afraid to test it.
Before he could think too hard, another chime echoed.
[Player detected entering Alder Village.]
A new window flickered into the corner of his vision, like a translucent hologram. A single icon pulsed above the southern path, shaped like a humanoid silhouette. Someone—some real-world person—had just logged in.
Kai stepped back from the window, heartbeat quickening.
If a player approached, he'd be expected to act like the Guide. Say the lines. Open the cabinet. Offer the starter beasts. Smile in the bland, friendly way NPCs always did.
His pulse spiked. He wasn't ready. He couldn't even tell if he had free will or just a limited override.
He clenched his fists until sensation returned—pins and needles, a muted ache. It felt real. It felt human. But under the surface, something else pulsed. Something coded.
He breathed slowly. "Think. Think."
He remembered the timeline of the game. The events. The quests. The disasters the developers had never patched cleanly.
One stood out: The Cradle Beast Glitch Event.
A harmless bug on release day. Funny to players. Annoying to newbies. It spewed corrupted monsters across the beginner zone for a week of chaos and cheap loot.
But this wasn't a server anymore. There were no respawns for NPCs who got caught in the mess. No safe zones, no teleport crystals, no GM reset.
If the corrupted beasts spawned the way he remembered, Alder Village would burn before anyone could react.
Kai swallowed hard. He needed strength. He needed options. He needed a partner beast of his own—something NPCs weren't allowed to have.
Footsteps filled the path outside.
He turned.
A girl about his age—short brown hair, simple tunic, boots too clean to belong to any villager. She moved with that tentative stiffness first-time players had. Turning her head too much. Pausing with each new sight.
Definitely a new player.
Kai felt the script rising in his throat. A pressure building behind his tongue, a soft nudge telling him what to say.
He fought it.
The girl stopped in front of him. "Hi! Um… are you the Guide?"
Kai nodded, careful. "Yeah. That's me."
The code surged, pushing the next line.
Welcome to Alder Village—
He clenched his teeth until the pressure ebbed and replaced itself with a faint burn, like getting pins and needles in his voice box.
He forced his own words out.
"Can I ask your name?"
The girl blinked. NPCs didn't ask questions outside a quest. They didn't improvise.
"Mira," she said slowly. "You're… different from the videos I watched."
"Trying something new," Kai lied.
He stepped back and opened the cabinet. Inside, resting in small circular niches, sat three glowing capsules—each with a faint pulse of color.
Red, green, and blue.
Each held a beginner creature.
Flarekit. Sproutail. Ripplepup.
In the game, they were cute but weak. Short-term partners meant to teach simple mechanics.
But here, they might be the difference between surviving the coming corruption or being erased by it.
Mira leaned forward, eyes shining. "Wow! They look better than I expected. Do I just… pick one?"
"Usually," Kai said. "But before you do…"
He hesitated.
The system pressed against him again, stronger this time.
[Warning. Guide NPC diverging from behavior parameters.]
A cold shiver ran through his body. His breath hitched. It felt like his bones tightened, like the world itself expected him to correct his behavior.
He pushed through it.
"I'm choosing one, too."
Mira stared at him. "NPCs can't have beasts."
"Yeah," he said. "I'm aware."
Another pulse of pressure slammed him, like an invisible hand forcing him toward the default dialogue.
Kai gripped the cabinet door hard enough that his knuckles whitened.
If he gave in now, that would be it. He'd fall into the script. He'd lose the little control he had. He'd never be ready for the corrupted event, or whatever else the game-turned-world had in store.
He pictured the glitch. The way it looked on the old servers—beasts turning black and purple, their eyes hollow, moving too fast for beginners to handle. He remembered laughing about it with friends years ago.
He didn't laugh now.
Kai reached into the cabinet.
The script bucked against him, jerking his arm. His fingers trembled. He forced them closed around the green capsule.
The pressure vanished with a sharp snap, like a rubber band breaking.
Kai stumbled, sucking in air. His whole body felt lighter and heavier at the same time.
Mira took a step toward him. "Are you okay?"
"No idea." He held up the capsule. "But I'm not passing up a chance to stay alive."
The green glow pulsed once, warm against his palm.
Sproutail was known as the weakest of the starters. But it had hidden evolution paths—the kind players rarely used because they were too slow or too weird.
He knew them all.
And he knew which one bloomed into something terrifying if handled right.
Mira cleared her throat. "So do I… still pick one?"
Kai nodded. "Yeah. You pick. Then I'll walk you through bonding."
Her smile returned as she reached in and grabbed the red capsule.
A fire type. Bold choice for a beginner.
Kai's pulse relaxed for the first time. Mira was just a player trying something new. He could manage this.
He could figure out the limits of his autonomy later. He could investigate how deep the code ran. He could search for other NPCs who'd broken free, or players who had clues. He could prepare for the corrupted beasts.
But for now, he needed to follow through with this moment.
"Ready?" he asked.
Mira nodded, bouncing slightly with excitement.
"Okay," Kai said softly. "Let's open them."
He pressed the release on his capsule.
Green light spiraled upward, forming a tiny creature with bright eyes, leaf-shaped ears, and a curious tilt of its head.
Sproutail.
It chirped once, soft and questioning, and hopped up onto Kai's shoulder without hesitation.
Mira gasped as her own beast materialized—a small fox-thing with bright ember spots along its back.
"Wow," she breathed. "This is amazing."
Kai managed a smile.
Yeah. It was amazing.
And terrifying.
Because somewhere far beyond the peaceful trees and tidy fences of the village, something in the world's unseen framework was beginning to stir.
And for the first time, an NPC was out of place.